Secret last words of the first man in space

Moments before delivering his legendary slogan, Yuri Gagarin had his mind on something else.

One of the last things that Yuri Gagarin had before making his pioneering trip into space 50 years ago was to ensure he has enough sausages to him on the last trip back to Moscow.

This tidbit was among more than 700 pages of material, once-secret related to the life and times of the first astronaut in the world that have been published by Russia before April 12 birthday.

Gagarin’s historic space shooting turned into an instant celebrity with the boy became a charm propaganda weapon for the Soviet Union as he scrambled to save its ideological battle against the United States during the Cold War.

His smiling boy-next-door and oversized helmet has become a staple of Soviet stamps all his heroism into a elementary school about literature that is comparable to the teaching of Lenin.

Russian authorities – with their own space program in trouble – have seized on this in glory partying Gagarin into a national event that runs from the halls of the Kremlin to the International Space Station.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is planning a visit to the Mission Control Centre outside Moscow while his mentor and predecessor, Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Russian cosmonauts and Ukrainian in Ukraine.

But the biggest news among Russians over the weekend were records of conversation revealing Gagarin was then strapped into a capsule with the chief designer Sergei Korolev Rocket – a man who became a legend in his own right.

Gagarin is best known by a generation of Russian decision “Poyekhali!” his Vostok spacecraft lifted off the ground.

The sentence can be translated as “Let’s Go!” Or “We’re Off!” And is now a regular part of the Russian language.